Anti-U.S. Protests Flare at Summit
Anti-American demonstrators torched storefronts and battled police Friday in this Atlantic resort following a large, peaceful protest, spearheaded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, over President Bush's plans to revive a free trade accord at a regional summit.
While Bush held closed-door meetings with allies among the 33 other presidents attending the fourth Summit of the Americas, Chavez antagonized him from the sidelines, rallying thousands of supporters in a nearby soccer stadium with a promise to bury U.S.-style capitalism throughout Latin America.
"Each one of us brought a shovel, a gravedigger's shovel, because here in Mar del Plata is the tomb of the Free Trade Area of the Americas," Chavez told the cheering crowd of 40,000 at the noon rally.
(...)
After the rally, some demonstrators formed small groups, smashing store windows with bricks and setting bonfires of looted furniture in the largely deserted downtown area.
(...)
Much of the public's animus was aimed directly at Bush. Hundreds of protesters had traveled through the night from Buenos Aires in a mass pilgrimage led by Maradona. Carrying signs comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler, the protesters chanted in unison as they filed into the stadium: "Bush, the fascist! Bush the terrorist!"
Backed by a giant portrait of the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, Chavez addressed the crowd for more than two hours. He touched on many of his favorite themes: the injustice of U.S. economic policies, his opposition to the war in Iraq, his allegations of a U.S. plan to invade Venezuela and his dream of a "Bolivarian revolution" that would spread socialism throughout Latin America.
(...)
"We're a people united against free trade, because free trade is a policy of death for our countries," said Carlos H. Reyes, 54, of Honduras.
Anti-American demonstrators torched storefronts and battled police Friday in this Atlantic resort following a large, peaceful protest, spearheaded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, over President Bush's plans to revive a free trade accord at a regional summit.
While Bush held closed-door meetings with allies among the 33 other presidents attending the fourth Summit of the Americas, Chavez antagonized him from the sidelines, rallying thousands of supporters in a nearby soccer stadium with a promise to bury U.S.-style capitalism throughout Latin America.
"Each one of us brought a shovel, a gravedigger's shovel, because here in Mar del Plata is the tomb of the Free Trade Area of the Americas," Chavez told the cheering crowd of 40,000 at the noon rally.
(...)
After the rally, some demonstrators formed small groups, smashing store windows with bricks and setting bonfires of looted furniture in the largely deserted downtown area.
(...)
Much of the public's animus was aimed directly at Bush. Hundreds of protesters had traveled through the night from Buenos Aires in a mass pilgrimage led by Maradona. Carrying signs comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler, the protesters chanted in unison as they filed into the stadium: "Bush, the fascist! Bush the terrorist!"
Backed by a giant portrait of the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, Chavez addressed the crowd for more than two hours. He touched on many of his favorite themes: the injustice of U.S. economic policies, his opposition to the war in Iraq, his allegations of a U.S. plan to invade Venezuela and his dream of a "Bolivarian revolution" that would spread socialism throughout Latin America.
(...)
"We're a people united against free trade, because free trade is a policy of death for our countries," said Carlos H. Reyes, 54, of Honduras.
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